Cry No More (8 page)

The man looked briefly at their clasped hands, then back up to their faces. “Don’t make me ask again,” he said, still in that totally empty tone.

That voice. She knew that voice. But panic was still beating through her veins, and she couldn’t solidify the memory. Milla swallowed and managed to get the words out of her tight throat, but her voice was strained. “It was a pay phone. The man said he didn’t know who used it, that he was too busy to pay attention.”

A slight dip of his eyelids was the only acknowledgment the intruder gave of her answer.

There was no way they could get past him. He wasn’t a huge man, but he was big enough, about six-one, maybe six-two, with a lean, hard build that said he was all muscle and strength, with a dash of rattlesnake quickness thrown in. He was darkness, a shadow filled with almost palpable menace.

Then she knew, and she felt dizzy as blood rushed from her head. She reached out and grabbed the edge of the desk for support. “You’re the man who knocked me down,” she said, the words thin and shocked. And in that instant she realized something else, something that made her knees shake and almost give way.
“You’re Diaz.”

Still his expression didn’t change. “I heard you wanted to talk to me,” he said.

7

Oh, God.
Diaz.
She remembered what True had said, that Diaz was an assassin, and she believed him. She had no doubt at all.

She should have expected this. True had told her just a few hours ago that people would put out the word they wanted Diaz, and he would find them. She had announced to a cantina full of men that she would pay a reward to anyone who could give her information about Diaz, knowing he was in the area, maybe even listening. Maybe she should be surprised it had taken Diaz thirty-six hours to show up; he could have been waiting for her yesterday morning. Then she remembered giving the men in the cantina her real name,
Milla Edge,
instead of
Milla Boone
as she usually did. Her telephone was listed under “Edge”; when she’d told True that her name wasn’t listed in the phone book, she’d meant “Milla Boone.” True himself had her home number only because she’d scribbled it on the back of one of her business cards. If Diaz had been on the ball, he could have broken into her condo before she’d even gotten up that morning.

Or maybe he’d just had something more interesting to do.

He stepped inside the office and closed the door, then moved to the side so his back wasn’t to all that glass. In doing so he blocked their exit past the open end of Milla’s U-shaped desk; if they wanted out from behind the desk, they would have to vault over it.

He dragged one of the chairs over and sat down, then stretched his legs out and crossed one booted foot over the other. “I’m here,” he said. “Talk.”

Part of Milla’s mind was blank; what did one say to an assassin? Hello, nice to meet you? But the other half of her brain was connecting dots and reaching obvious conclusions. Obviously, Diaz wasn’t the one-eyed man. But he had been observing the meeting on Friday night, so he was either hunting one of the men involved or was following them, expecting them to lead him to his target. She suspected the latter, because all he had done was watch them. And if anyone could find the one-eyed man, it was Diaz. He might know where the bastard was at this very moment.

Slowly she pulled Joann to the side, and stepped in front of her. It wasn’t fair that Joann should be dragged into the middle of this when it was all Milla’s doing, and her problem to solve. Milla pulled her chair out of the protective U of her desk and sat down, her knees almost touching his legs, though she was careful to keep that precious inch of space between them.

“I’m Milla Edge,” she began.

“I know.”

His complete lack of facial expression was unnerving. Everything about him was unnerving, yet she knew she could have walked past him on the street and not looked twice. He wasn’t a slavering madman, as would have befitted a homicidal maniac; instead he seemed very controlled and detached. His black hair was cropped short and his jaw was covered with a day’s worth of stubble, but that wasn’t disreputable. His olive drab T-shirt was clean, as were his black jeans and black rubber-soled boots. The short sleeves of the T-shirt clung to his biceps, but his arms were sinewy rather than bulky, roped with muscles and veins. If he had a weapon on him, she thought, it had to be tucked into one of his boots. That wasn’t terribly reassuring, nor was the fact that he was sitting in such a relaxed posture. A snake could strike without warning, but the line of poetry that began running through her head wasn’t about snakes; it was about a panther. Ogden Nash had said, “If called by a panther, don’t anther.” And yet she had called one to her, and now she had to deal with it.

Except for the brief time he’d glanced at Joann’s grip on her hand, he hadn’t once looked away from Milla’s face, and that was the most unnerving thing of all.

“I’m told you find people,” she said softly.

Behind her, Joann made an abrupt movement. “Milla—” she began sharply, and Milla knew she was going to say this wasn’t a good idea, maybe she should reconsider, and all the other sensible things that could be said. Diaz’s gaze didn’t waver, and Milla lifted her hand to forestall her friend’s objections.

“Sometimes,” Diaz said.

“The one-eyed man, at that meeting Friday night. I want to find him.”

“He’s nothing. He isn’t important.” There was a slight inflection to his speech, not in his tone but in the way he shaped his words, as if perhaps English wasn’t his first language. He spoke English perfectly and with a west Texas accent, but there was still something, beyond his name, that spoke of Mexico. If he’d been born in the United States, she’d find a hat and eat it.

“He’s important to me,” she said, and drew a breath. Success was once again singing its Lorelei song, beckoning to her. This man gave her a real shot at finding out what had happened to her son, and if she was dealing with the devil, then so be it. “Ten years ago, my six-week-old son was stolen from me. My ex-husband is a doctor; he and some of his colleagues had set up a free clinic in one of the poorer areas of Chihuahua and we lived there for a year. My baby was born there. I was at the market and two men jerked him away from me, but I fought back, and clawed out the left eye of the man who had my son. The other man stabbed me in the back, and they both escaped. I haven’t seen my baby since.”

Something was glimmering in his gaze, some minute change that signaled a sharpening of his attention. “So you’re the one.”

“The one?” she parroted.

“Who blinded that pig Pavón.”

Pavón
. Oh, my God, that was his name. After ten years,
she knew his name
. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, her hands clenching into fists. Her heartbeat had been settling down a bit, but now it was thundering even harder in her chest, deafening her with the roar of blood through her veins. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to jump up and find him
right now
; she wanted to slam his head against a wall until he gave her the answers she wanted. But two of those things she couldn’t do, and one she refused to do, so instead she pressed her violently trembling fists against her eyes and fought for control.

“Do you know his first name?” she asked in a constricted voice.

“Arturo.”

Arturo Pavón.
The letters branded themselves in her mind. Just as she had never forgotten his face, she would never forget his name, or this moment. For so long she had struggled and persisted with practically nothing to go on; now all of a sudden things were changing so fast she felt as if her world had tilted on its axis. Logically, she had known she would likely never find Justin. Emotionally, she had been unable to stop looking. Now, at last, the real possibility existed that she might at least be able to find out if he had
lived
. And if she could actually find him, find her little boy . . .

“Can you find him?” she asked, leaning forward as if by sheer force of will she could bend events to her wishes. “I want to talk to him. I want to find out what he did with my son—”

“Your baby was sold,” he said flatly. “Pavón wouldn’t know to who. He’s a
pendejo
, a
gañan.
”

Milla blinked.
Gañan
she understood: “thug.” But unless she was mistaken, Diaz had also called Pavón a pubic hair. Obviously she missed some of the nuances of idiomatic Mexican Spanish. “He’s a what?”

“He’s nothing. He’s a little man who follows orders.” Diaz shrugged. “He’s also a mean, worthless son of a bitch, but the bottom line is he doesn’t have any authority.”

“He’s still my only link, and I have to follow the chain to find my son.”

“You can follow the chain, but the odds are it won’t lead anywhere except back on itself. Smugglers don’t keep records. He’ll remember
you
, of course, and probably your baby, but all he’ll know is that the baby was taken across the border and sold. That’s it.”

She couldn’t accept that the trail led nowhere. Pavón wouldn’t have been in any shape to take Justin to the border himself; the most likely person to have done that was the second man, the one who stabbed her. Pavón would know that man’s name. And when she found that man, he would know another name. If she just kept digging, eventually she would find Justin.

“I still want to find him,” she said stubbornly. “You were watching him that night, you kept me from—”

“—getting yourself killed.”

“Yes,” she admitted. “Probably. Not that protecting me was your intention, you just didn’t want them to know anyone was watching. But since you’re trailing him anyway, why can’t you—”

“I’m not tracking him in particular,” Diaz interrupted. “I’m following the snake back to its head.”

“But you know where he is.”

“No. I don’t.”

She felt like screaming in frustration. She wouldn’t accept a dead end now; she simply wouldn’t. “You can find him.”

“I can find anyone. Eventually.”

“Because you don’t give up. I can’t give up, either. If it’s a matter of money, of course I’ll pay you.” She couldn’t in good conscience let Finders foot the bill, but she would give him every penny she had in savings, and beg more from David if she had to. Not that there would be any begging to it; David would do anything to help her find Justin.

Diaz regarded her with a faint gleam of curiosity in his eyes, as if she were an alien species and he couldn’t figure out what made her tick. He was a man who evidently felt very little; she was a woman who felt, perhaps, too much. Since she couldn’t appeal to his emotions, she tried instead to appeal to his logic. “Finders has a huge network of people, contacts you can’t imagine. If you help me, I’ll help you.”

“I don’t need help.” His gaze was cold and remote again. “And I work alone.”

There had to be something she could offer him. “A green card?” She could pull in some favors, get some corners cut.

For the first time there was a real expression on his face: amusement. “I’m an American citizen.”

“What, then?” she asked in frustration. “Why won’t you take the job? I’m not asking you to kill anyone; just help me find him.” Or maybe that was it; maybe he got off on the thrill of the hunt, the struggle to the death.

“What makes you think I would kill anyone for you?” His voice had gone soft again, his face hard and blank.

Normally she was discreet about her informants, but her nerves were like jagged shards of glass slicing at her. Somehow, any way she could, she had to convince Diaz to help her. “True Gallagher pulled together some information for me, on anyone named Diaz who could have been connected to my son’s kidnapping.”

“True Gallagher . . .” he repeated, as if trying out the name on his tongue.

“He’s one of our sponsors.”

“And this information said . . . ?” he prompted.

“That you’re an assassin.” She didn’t hide the truth, or try to be coy about it. Perhaps he wasn’t an assassin, but she still had no doubt he could kill and had killed. And if he was, knowing that she had both eyes wide open concerning him and was still willing to hire him might make a difference in his decision.

Joann made a small sound of shock, but he didn’t look at her.

“Your informant is wrong. There are reasons for which I would kill. I may get paid, but the money isn’t why I kill.”

Which in no way said that he hadn’t killed, or that he wouldn’t kill again. But oddly enough, she believed him, and felt reassured. At least he had some sort of moral compass, a standard to which he held himself.

He steepled his hands, watching her over his fingertips as he seemed to be contemplating something. Finally he said, “Tell me about this tip you got about me on Friday night.”

“I don’t have a lot to tell. The caller was a Hispanic man. All he said was that you would be at a meeting behind the church in Guadalupe, at ten-thirty. The call was made from that service station, and the owner doesn’t know anything about it.”

She couldn’t read what was going on behind those cold, dark eyes, but she could imagine he was sorting through acquaintances and possibilities.

“At the time, I thought Pavón’s name could be Diaz,” she explained. “All I had were vague rumors that a man named Diaz was involved in some disappearances. I thought you could be the one-eyed man, because your name kept coming up in connection with him.”

“I have no connection with him.”

“I heard that he works for you.”

His eyes went even colder.

“The point is, I’ve had feelers out for information about you for two years. Anyone could have called.” She paused, another point occurring to her. “Though, since I’ve been offering rewards from the beginning, it’s strange that I’d get an anonymous tip and there wasn’t any effort to collect on the offer.”

“Not just anyone would have information about my whereabouts.”

And he didn’t like it.

“Who knew where you would be?” she asked. “Anyone you told, obviously. And the person who gave
you
the tip about the meeting.”

“I didn’t tell anyone, so that narrows the list of possibilities. The question is, why?”

“Brian and I thought you were being set up, but that obviously wasn’t the case. Pavón and the others had no idea you were there.”

“Brian,” he said. “That would be the man hiding on the other side of the cemetery?”

So he’d seen Brian, too. She nodded. “He works for Finders, too. We’d been out on a case and were on our way home when I got the call.”

Something was going on. It was almost as if she had been deliberately thrown in Diaz’s path. She didn’t have to read his expression to know what was going through his mind, because she was having the same thoughts.

“I’ll help you,” he said abruptly, and flowed to his feet. “I’ll be in touch.”

He left the office and a few seconds later they heard the sound of the outer door closing. Milla and Joann stared at each other, then turned as one and raced to the window to see where he went.

The stairs to the office were empty. So was the parking lot. There was no sign of him, and though Milla opened the door and listened for the sound of a car engine being cranked, she heard nothing. It was as if he’d disappeared.

“I know how he got out,” she said, bemused. “But how did he get in?”

“I don’t know,” Joann moaned, collapsing into the nearest chair. “My God, I’ve never been so scared in my life! He was probably already in here when I arrived. If he’d wanted, he could have done anything.”